With the Passion Put to Use
by By Another Name
Summary: A sunny day, a study session, and a random library book. It should have been a mundane afternoon.
1. Forty-three

_Disclaimer: The characters here and the world they inhabit are the creation and property of JK Rowling and her assigns._

The sun was brighter than usual that Easter Holiday. The Slytherin Seventh Year students-those that stayed at Hogwarts to revise for N.E.W.T.s, that is-spent much of the week out by the lake. Perhaps it was slightly less effective to have study sessions out where the grass was so green and the sky was so blue, but it was far more effective than sitting in classrooms and looking longingly out of doors.

Today was Arithmancy, and quite dry at that. Andromeda, having quickly done the problem set they planned to work on, spent most of her time smiling into the face of the sun and ignoring the Mudblood under the tree that was right on the shore of the lake. He was also studying for the Arithmancy N.E.W.T as well as the Potions N.E.W.T. that they had studied for yesterday. In fact, Andromeda seemed to recall that she'd seen him there every day this week. He was an ordinary sort of fellow, with sandy blond hair that got in his eyes. She was torn between wanting to cut it and wanting to run her fingers through it.

Wait.

No, of course she didn't want to touch his hair or any part of him. He was a Mudblood for Merlin's sake! If Lucius's hair drooped like that, she would want to touch it, she told herself with a nod. The ring on her left hand winked and twinkled in the sunlight. She wasn't used to being an engaged person yet. They'd barely even kissed. The first attempt had ended with Lucius receiving a sore nose and an embarrassing rash. Served him right for coming at her with no warning.

The Mudblood was smiling brightly. Damn, he'd caught her staring. She looked away, suddenly very interested in the discussion. What was Sinistra going on about? Oh, yes, the combinations necessary to get the correct answer to number 23. Andromeda checked her work, which was of course exactly as Sinstra was describing. It was safe to take a surreptitious look at the Mudblood, to make sure he was looking back at his book. Damn, he caught her again, and this time raised an eyebrow at her.

She couldn't believe no one else saw him. Lucius, she could well believe. He was trying this philosophy in which the difficult aspects of life simply didn't exist. He would never see the Mudblood because he had decided Mudbloods shouldn't, and therefore didn't, exist. He was pretty good at it, too. He never noticed the Mudbloods any more, and even the only half-blood who existed in Lucius's world was that funny Snape kid in second year.

Speaking of Lucius, he was coming over the rise. "It's time for you to come to dinner! You can study more of your numbery mess afterwards!"

"It's Astronomy tonight," Sinistra responded, "Something you would do well to study, yourself."

"Aurora, you're brilliant," he responded. "An opportunity to spend time in the starlight with my beautiful future bride!" He sighted Andromeda, and after heading in her direction, tripped over something and stopped to look at it. "Hallo, this isn't Arithmancy. _Sonnets from the Portuguese_? Who's reading this Mudblood garbage?" He looked around the group.

Andromeda stood. "I'm sure I don't know, but I'm also sure it's harmless, Lucius. Look, it's a library book. We should take it back."

"'How do I love thee?'" Lucius grabbed Andromeda's hand with proprietary grace and held the book open in his other hand. "Aha! This one is about us! 'How to I love thee? Let me count the ways.'" Dropping the poetry book, he took Andromeda's study books from her and declaimed, "I love thy mother, so pure of blood, and thy father, _toujours pur_ , and would that I could count every drop of pure blood within your lovely body..."

He moved in to kiss her but ended up kissing the air behind her head as she turned toward the castle and said, "I wonder what's for dinner tonight? I hope it's something good."

"If you wish for anything that isn't there, I shall demand the House-elves fix it forthwith, my lady," Lucius replied. Everyone was moving toward the castle by then, and he drew her along. "I shall draw you into my star charts tonight, darling Andie, and in my mind I shall be drawing us both up there, looking down upon the world we shall someday rule."

Andromeda carefully looked away from him before rolling her eyes. Surely this isn't what love was supposed to be. Suddenly she remembered that book. They didn't have it with them. "Oh, Lucius, we forgot a book. I'll run back for it. Don't wait for me."

"I shall secure our spot at the table."

She quickly saw the book. Running toward it, she didn't see the Mudblood, who had lingered. She heard him first. "'I love thee to the depth and breadth and height my soul can reach, when feeling out of sight for the ends of being and ideal grace."

He reached forward to cup her face in his hands, and since she had put her hands to her hips as soon as he started talking, she couldn't avoid it. Then his lips were on hers. Nothing like this had ever happened to her before, and she gasped, into his mouth as it turned out, while her hands and arms tried to figure out what to do. One was pushing him away as the other pulled him closer and a force like magic seemed to flow between them. Had they become Dementors, stealing each others very souls away? Finally the hand that was pushing him away won.

"...I love thee freely, as men strive for right.." the Mudblood was saying.

After recovering her breath, Andromeda faced him and looked him in the eye. "NEVER do that again, Mudblood," she said.

"It's number forty-three," he said.

She swept the book from the ground and ran up to Lucius, who was almost to the doors by then.

"You're all red," he remarked.

"I just ran to catch up with you, and..." That was all she had, but it was enough.

"Oh, of course. It's not your best look, I must say."

They sat in the very middle of the Slytherin table, looking out over the rest of Great Hall, as if they did indeed rule it. Lucius loved that sort of thing; Andromeda was uncomfortable with it, especially since the Mudblood kept looking at her from the Hufflepuff table as if the sun had dawned on his face. She made it through dinner, enjoying it sufficiently that Lucius didn't trouble the House-elves.

"How shall we while the hours before the stars come out?" Lucius asked her as finished eating.

"I'm going to take a book back to the library," she responded.

"Ugh, horrid place, and you'll spend the next hour there if I know you at all. I think I shall go back to my dorm. There's something I should check on." His hair, probably. It was a particularly good feature, but Andromeda somehow thought that he felt more affection for it than any person he knew, certainly more than he felt for her.

The library was cool and shady and relaxing. She intended to go straight to the desk to return the book, but found herself sitting down with it instead. "The face of all the world is changed I think," captured her eye. She kept paging through. Why was she bothering with this? She couldn't keep herself from opening to the poem Lucius, and then the Mudblood, had recited. And there it was. It was the sort of love that Andromeda has wondered about. She pictured the Mudblood saying those lines, and in her mind's eye they flowed easily from lips that she'd never noticed before. Sure she'd heard his voice countless times in class, giving answers in exchange for points to Hufflepuff, but now he became a completely different person to her. Why would he say such things to her? Why would he _kiss_ her? Was the answer in this poem?

"Smiles, tears, of all my life; and, if God choose, I shall but love thee better after death."

Andromeda jumped up, put the book on the desk, and ran from the library. Something just walked over her grave.

 _Author's Note:_

 _This was in response to the challenge issued to me by Kerichi in the story Complicated. I don't know whether to pass the challenge along or whom to pass it, but if something strikes your fancy, please feel free to continue the theme._

 _Meanwhile, the central literary tool of this story is Sonnet #43 of Elizabeth Barrett Browning's Sonnets from the Portuguese. The first line of Sonnet #7 also seemed apt, and so it caught Andromeda's eye as she thumbed through. _


	2. Six

_Disclaimer: The characters here and the world they inhabit are the creation and property of JK Rowling and her assigns._

"Go from me. Yet I feel that I shall stand henceforward in thy shadow."

He couldn't stop it running through his head, like the ticker at his uncle's brokerage. It had been like that for weeks. She never acknowledged him, and why should she? She was a princess, of privileged lineage and wealth. Ted wasn't exactly poor; his family knew how to support themselves and set a little aside as well, but she was born to it. As N.E.W.T.s approached, her fiasco of a fiance became more and more possessive of her. Malfoy was always grabbing her hand or pulling her close to his side. It might have been Ted's imagination, but it seemed as though the princess found inventive ways and reasons to escape his grasp. He could only hope that she would eventually escape him altogether. He knew he wasn't one to judge, but he was sure the kisses Malfoy tried to snatch were inept, and she never seemed to kiss back.

He couldn't stop thinking about their one kiss, and the others that should have followed. Sometimes in Charms class Ted thought he caught the princess staring at him. Perhaps it was only because he'd been called upon to speak. She seemed listless in Potions, chopping her herbs or stirring her mixtures as if she used her last bit of strength to do so. Altogether, it was as though a light had gone out within her. Had he inadvertently caused this by his kiss? Could he somehow make it better?

It was during the Arithmancy exam that he caught her looking at him. The way she held her fingers to her lips, caressing them, suggested to him that she remembered. Perhaps the light had been banked, hiding behind ashes, waiting to be kindled. She realized he was looking at her and quickly looked away. She smiled too much at Malfoy and turned on her princess face.

Ted was running out of time. He'd looked for her after class, before and after meals, and even in Hogsmeade. Where she'd been perfectly visible in the Charms classroom or at the Slytherin table, it was as though she had evaporated otherwise. He'd spent hours studying in the library, hoping to catch a glimpse of her and perhaps to speak to her. Nothing he tried worked. She must have wanted to be impossible to find if she was willing to give up what seemed to be her favorite place in the school up till now. The fact that he usually saw Malfoy looking for her in the same places was somewhat heartening.

Thus it happened that classes ended and after a couple of weeks exams also ended. This day had seen the last of their N.E.W.T.s, tomorrow would be the day to pack and the Leaving Feast, and the day after they would return to the outside world. It seemed that for whatever reason, Ted would have to leave school without speaking to her.

He trudged around the outside of the castle in the gathering dusk. It was a task he was given as prefect and because he would be training with the Department of Magical Law Enforcement soon, he recited his hopes to himself. She couldn't possibly marry Malfoy. He was impossible. Ted could tell that the princess was well aware of that fact, too. The princess was pure-blooded, and unlikely to disappear into the Muggle world. Since she would be staying within the much smaller Magical world, his chances of seeing her around London were quite strong. He would have plenty of opportunities to perhaps catch her and share a table and tea or coffee. She would find out about him, and he could find out if she were all that he believed she was.

A scratching noise grated out above him. Someone was opening a window well above his head. Tipping backward, he realized it was a library window. A head was leaning out. Twilight was almost over, and he couldn't make out a face. As he watched, he saw whoever it was first climb to a sitting position onto the windowsill, and then put a leg over.

"Oh, shit!" he gasped. Someone was going to jump. "Wait! Don't!" he hollered up, but there was a breeze and he couldn't be sure his voice carried up to the fourth floor. He dropped his wand as he tried to figure out what stance would be best to break the fall without killing either of them.

An instant later, he was rubbing the back of his head and wondering what the rest of him was feeling. He was able to sit up, so he did, and discovered the princess in his lap. "'Serenely in the sunshine as before,'" he murmured. With all the thoughts and feelings running through his mind and body, he couldn't seem to do anything but kiss her. She was _so_ soft, and it felt _so_ right. About the time he tasted the fresh strawberries from the dinner pudding he realized that it might not have been the best idea. He pulled back, a little cheered by the way she clung to him. "Are you hurt?" he asked. "Can you get to the Hospital Wing?"

She nodded, and they somehow found their feet. Ted found his wand, and they made their way to the door of the castle.

"Good gracious!" said McGonagall as they passed her in the hallway. "What happened?"

"She fell from one of the upper story windows, pretty hard," answered Ted. "I was underneath."

"Both of you get to the hospital wing. I'll fetch Horace." McGonagall ran to the nearest staircase.

They continued on their path, and Ted couldn't help himself. "'And what I dream include thee as the wine must taste of its own grapes.'" He touched her hand, but she snatched it back.

The Matron met them at the door and sent them to adjacent beds, where she cast spells quicker than a person should be able to talk and asked what had happened. Ted spoke first. "I think she must have been trying to get some air and somehow fell from an upper floor window..."

"Aaarghhhh!" The princess suddenly got up and walked over to his bed. She opened her mouth as if to speak, but then bit her lip and then slapped him, hard. "You _damned_ idiot!" she hissed.

There was a gasp from close to the door.

"After he no doubt saved your life, Miss Black!" said McGonagall. "Ten points from Slytherin, and..."

Malfoy was suddenly there, no doubt after having searched for the princess everywhere. "She can't serve a detention," he whined, "Professor Slughorn?"

Slughorn cleared his throat. "Quite right, Minerva, she's in no condition for detention tonight, and they're to be married tomorrow night."

McGonagall shrugged. "A detention probably wouldn't do her any good, anyway. Very well. She's to be under the care of the Matron until she's well enough to leave, and then whatever plans she has can proceed."

Malfoy looked unbearably pleased. Ted felt the crackle of uncontrolled magic directed at himself and glanced over to see that the princess was looking at him with murder in her eyes. Ted felt his soul fill with dismay. His hopes of seeing her and courting her in some form of normalcy disappeared in less than an instant. Why had she climbed out that window, and why were neither of them significantly injured? Suddenly he had a better guess, but the opportunity was lost, perhaps gone forever.

"'Doom takes to part us... sees within my eyes the tears of two.'"

 _Author Note: As the chapter title suggests, the sonnet bits here are from #6 of Sonnets from the Portuguese._


	3. Forty-two

_Disclaimer: The characters here and the world they inhabit are the creation and property of JK Rowling and her assigns._

* * *

 _Unlike are we, unlike, o princely heart!_

Everyone left the Hospital Wing, leaving Andromeda and the Mudblood alone with the Matron, who mumbled something about pajamas before pulling the curtains and going to her storeroom. Andromeda glanced over toward the other cubicle. The curtain was silent.

"Let me count the ways," came a lazy voice on her other side. Andromeda dragged her gaze back over to where Lucius apparently still stood. She smiled in a way she hoped was properly charming.

He smiled down upon her, and for some reason it made her shrink back into the bed upon which she was sitting. "Let me count the ways," he whispered. "First of all, by this time tomorrow, your sizable dowry will be in my control. Second of all, later tomorrow night, you will allow me to do all the things you haven't let me do since our engagement."

There was a banging sound in the next cubicle and a muffled sound of annoyance. A candle flickered and was then put right.

"Where was I?" asked Lucius. "Oh, yes, third of all and most importantly, within the next month, you will be in the process of bringing the precious heir my father wants into the world. Then I shall be free to pursue my own interests."

Andromeda was confused. "I thought you wanted..."

"You're the wrong sister."

"Narcissa, then..." Her mind worked quickly. Cissy had been treating Andromeda like some sort of a thief since the Blacks had announced this engagement. Did Lucius mean that he reciprocated Cissy's feelings?

"Of course, Cissy, but no! Father thought you seemed more-" he smirked- "sturdy." He ran his fingertips along her arm. "I admit I find you interesting, but you're not my first choice."

"So after there are children..."

"I shall be free to indulge my preferences."

"And I?"

"Will be free to do as my father directs."

The matron came in and clapped her hands. "Off you go, Mr. Malfoy."

"I'll be back before breakfast."

"Oh, Lucius, you know that you can't see me before the wedding tomorrow."

He smiled almost genuinely this time. "Perhaps you're right. Better not court ill luck."

He was gone in a flash, and Andromeda was left to slip into her hospital gown while the Matron fussed at the Mudblood behind the curtain. A moment later the Matron was back, and casting spells left and right. "Into the bed with you, dearie, and rest well."

"Yes, ma'am," she said, meekly, pulling the covers over her legs.

The Matron bustled off to her own room and shut the door.

The Mudblood peeked around the curtain.

 _I, who thought to sink,_ _Was caught up into love, and taught the whole Of life in a new rhythm._ It came to the front of her mind without her consciously looking for it.

"You weren't trying to kill yourself," he said with a kind smile.

She was irritated by it. "And the sickle drops. Good for you, Mudblood."

"So how were you going to get through the gates?"

"Walk, of course."

"You know they're locked, both physically and magically. You never would have got out."

She knew she was looking at him stupidly. It made her irrationally angry-at him. "Still, you shouldn't have interfered. It had nothing to do with you, you know."

"'Ah... but a man's reach should exceed his grasp, or what's a Heaven for?'"

"That's-that's not in the book."

He smiled, and it was as though the sun was rising behind him. "You've read it. You must've read all of it."

He'd gone and changed the rules on her, quoting from somewhere else. "Oh, I don't care."

"It was written by her husband."

She laid down and rolled away from him. "I'm sure that I'm very happy for them."

He walked around the bed and knelt down till he was even with her face. Her breath disappeared. It must be somewhere.

"You can't marry him."

"Thank you, Mr. Obvious. I hadn't figured that part out, yet."

Suddenly he was doing that thing again, and there were his lips, and her lips, and her hands were around his neck, strangling-no, tugging him closer. She broke away. "This has to stop."

"Where were you going to go?"

She sat up and hugged her legs. "Diagon Alley. I was going to send an owl to my Uncle Alphard. He's one of them, but not really. He'd help me. I've already directed my trunk to his house."

"Wouldn't they find you?"

"I have some metamorphmagus abilities. I could hide well enough until he could get there."

"How long could you stay with him?"

"A day or two until they decide to check his house anyway. As if it matters to you."

"I might have an idea."

"How do I get off the grounds?"

He smiled. "That's the easy part. Do you have your uncle's address?"

She shook her head. "It's somewhere in Blackpool. I really don't know. Maybe my cousin knows. He spends weeks at a time there when Aunt Wallberga gets too angry."

"Can you meet me in the library, near the Herbology section before lunch tomorrow?"

"You really have an idea?"

"Will you take a chance with me?"

"'I seek no copy now of life's first half.'" He smiled, and she continued, "Yes, I will go with you. Anything to avoid what they want." She hated sounding desperate, but things were at a desperate point.

He walked back toward the curtain. "I'll see you in the library before lunch, then. Sleep well, Princess."

"I have a name, you know."

His face poked back out. "Yes, I do know, Miss Black, and in fact, _most_ people have names."

She looked at his curtain, feeling a bit shamed by that without knowing why.

* * *

The Matron let Andromeda go after breakfast, and she hurried away before she could be called back. She never saw the Mudblood-other student, she told herself-and she didn't take time to look for him. Her first stop was the potions classroom. Given Slughorn's general laziness, she suspected her potions from the past term were still there, and she wanted one of them.

It was as she supposed. Protected from light and other adverse conditions, it looked exactly as she left it. It smelled right, so she pulled a few strands of hair out of her head, rolled them between her fingertips, and dropped the resulting snarl into the bottle. As she shook it, it turned a shade of violet that was identical to what had happened on the day a sample of the same potion had gained her an O.

* * *

When Narcissa came to Andromeda's dormitory room an hour later, she found Andromeda sitting on her bed next to her wedding gown. The comb that was to be used as a portkey was near by as well. A bottle of purple potion and several toiletries and cosmetics were lined up on Andromeda's desk.

"Why aren't you ready yet? The portkey is in half an hour."

"Cissy? Why have you been so angry with me since the engagement?"

"Are you kidding? That," Narcissa pointed at Andromeda's engagement ring, "should be mine."

"So you're saying that if I was suddenly gone..."

"I would take my rightful place as Lucius' wife."

Andromeda nodded, "I just needed to hear you say it. You're right; there's not a lot of time. Could you look at me, please? I need to see your eyes, dear. Yes, just like that. _Confundo..._ "

* * *

"You're early. That's good."

The Mud-other student-took Andromeda's hand and walked over to one of the bookshelves. He turned _How to Tell if Your Tentacula is Venomous and 101 other Useful Hints_ , and a space suddenly appeared among the stacks. He led her to the opening. By the dim light of his wand she saw a staircase. The opening in the library closed after they passed.

"How did-"

He put his hand over her mouth and breathed into her ear. "Hush! The staff lounge is just beyond the next landing."

She nodded and followed him. They went down past three landings and where the fourth should have been the stairs ended, evening to a path with a downward slant. After ten or fifteen minutes, the path slanted back upwards, and he turned to her. "I tried to pick up that book to look at it sometime in fourth year, and it wouldn't come off the shelf. It's just a lever that opens that doorway."

"So where do we come out?"

"The Hog's Head."

"I can Apparate from there."

"I don't think you should; isn't your uncle going to the wedding? Would an owl get to him in time?"

She bit her lip. "I guess not; I'd have to find someplace to be perhaps all night."

They reached a door that opened in a back room of the inn. He peeked into the main room. "All right, Abe?" The barman nodded and he continued. "I'm going to take the bike out for a few hours. Not that it matters to him much," he muttered under his breath.

They went out to a shed, and opened the doors. A machine with wheels and tubes and things was standing there.

"What is that thing?"

"It's a Triumph motorbike. My dad had it during the Muggle war. He gave it to me for my birthday, and Abe lets me keep it here."

"What does it do?"

"It takes people places."

She realized what he intended and shook her head. "Oh, no... you can't be serious."

"I can be serious, speaking of whom, he gave me your uncle's address. It will be a stretch, but I think I can take you down and be back for the leaving feast. No one will suspect I'm involved, and they won't think of asking me."

"But-"

He put a paper bag into a sort of pouch on one side of the machine and rummaged in the other side, pulling out a leather robe, much shorter than his school robes. He changed, and then made to wad his school robe into the pouch. Andromeda sighed and held out her hand.

"Really?" he chuckled as she folded it and handed it back. "You're going to love this, I promise."

"I'm out of other options."

He put his hand under her chin. "Do you trust me?"

She sighed and said the first thing that came to her mind. "'Write me new my future's epigraph?'"

He smiled and kissed her, and it was the best thing that had happened all day. She ran her hands up the leather on his shoulders, but this time he ended it.

"All right, then. You need to wear this helmet." He put a hallowed out ball on her head and snapped it under her chin. After kissing her, he put a similar hat on his own head.

"Now, you're going to sit here." He lifted her and deposited her on the back portion of what she had to assume was the seat. He leaned down and yelled a bit, because the hats muffled the sound. "I need you to hold my jacket when we're going, ok?"

She nodded. "Thank you... Edward."

He was startled for a second, and then leaned down, causing their hats to bump. His lips manged to kiss the tip of her nose. He zipped up his funny leather robe. Then he lifted his leg over the bike and sat on the front part of the seat. After some sort of adjustment for balance and whatnot, he did a strange jumping movement, and the machine exploded in sound and malodorous fumes. Andromeda shrieked and grabbed him around the waist. She felt his laughter through his jacket as he adjusted her hands to a better position. It seemed that the machine was intact after all.

A moment or two later the machine carried them away from Hogsmeade, leaving behind a cacophony of sound and more fumes.

* * *

 _A/N: Sonnets from the Portuguese, of course, #42, mostly, but there's a line of two from another, and of course the line Ted recites is from Robert Browning. I can't seem to stop writing this story. Chapter 4 is already in my head, with ideas for further chapters. Should I stop? Should I keep going? To weigh in on this and other pressing issues, mash the review button and let me know._


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